Strength Which God Supplies

Inspiring, to say the least :-)

God, You are greater than all of me.

Teach me... Guide me... I'm lost without You.

Reach me... Try me... make me more like You.

"O, how I want to make sure that the image in your mind of how to glorify God is not wrong. For many it's like waking up in the morning, looking up to God and saying, "You are worthy to be glorified today, Lord, and I will do my best." Then they look over and on their Bible is a big block of lead with shoulder straps. And on the block is inscribed: "The duty to glorify God all day." They strap it on, muster their strength and resolve, and head off to glorify God.

If that image, or one like it, is the way you feel about glorifying God, please look and see that 1 Peter 4:11 shatters such an image. May I suggest a more biblical image? There is a man, and I know him well (he is the husband of my wife and father to my sons), who wakes up in the morning and looks up into heaven and says, "You are worthy to be glorified today, Lord, but there is in me—that is in my flesh—no good thing. I have no strength, no wisdom, no resolve to do good but what comes undeserved from you, O God. And I love you. It would be to my greatest fulfillment, my highest pleasure, my richest treasure, my popcorn and my chocolate ice cream if at the end of this day I could believe that someone has come to cherish your power and wisdom and love more intensely because of me. God, let it be."

And then he looks over and on his Bible there is this strange contraption of straps like a harness. And on the back of this harness there is a rope attached that runs up through the roof and into heaven. And he gets up, straps on the harness, gives a little jerk, leans into it, and God supports him all day. On the broad, brown leather strap across the front you can see the lettering: "My harness is easy and my burden is light."

God gets glory not from our heroic exertion but from our reliance upon his strength—when we serve as one who serves with the strength which God supplies.

God's will himself to glorify
Is not a weight
to make us sigh
For it is wings
to make us fly."

Taken from: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/how-to-do-good-so-that-god-gets-the-glory